officials say they were not informed in advance that the algerian military was going to launch this hostage rescue attempt, and, in fact, some officials are somewhat upset over that fact, but they understand and some officials have acknowledged that the algerians are, you know, in a situation in a pretty bad mained that any sign of weakness or any sign of loss of control could prove fatal to a central government in that region and that the algerians apparently felt that sdisive action had to be taken. there's no indication that the hostages were under a immediate threat. as we said, british and american officials were unaware that this operation was going to take place. now, what is interesting is that the u.s. had been providing from the very beginning of that operation electronic surveillance, satellite surveillance, both visual and